


So this is love

by rotg5311



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Best Friends, Boys Kissing, Childhood Trauma, Drinking, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gay Panic, Heterochromia, Living Together, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Promotion, Reminiscing, Scars, Slow Burn, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Vinnie Dakota Needs a Hug, bad original timeline, light sensitivity, missing the future, sensitive eyes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:20:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25453783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotg5311/pseuds/rotg5311
Summary: Dakota struggles living in the past. Cavendish is there to help.
Relationships: Balthazar Cavendish/Vinnie Dakota
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

Dakota sighed, staring at the tiny piece of silicone in his hand. The contact lens was well past its due date and for days he had been waiting for it to shit the bed. It was a miracle it even lasted this long considering he took it out less frequently than he was supposed to nowadays. Still, as uncomfortable as it had become in the past week or so, his last lens had been a trooper and he was sad to see it go. A little piece of his heart broke as he dropped the colored lens into the trash can. 

Saluting his fallen soldier, Dakota slipped his tinted glasses back on and eyed himself cautiously. Even without the colored contact lens it was impossible to tell he had two mismatched eyes beneath the red hue of the glass. Perfect. Now all he had to do was never take these glasses off again and he would be fine. Of course he would look around for the closest equivalent to his futuristic lens as he could, but he already knew the technology didn’t exist yet, or if it had it was no where near perfected yet. If Dakota had known he would be banished to the past, he would’ve taken all the contacts from the future with him.

“Dakota, hurry up in there. Other people have business to attend to, you know.” Cavendish’s voice accompanied a banging on the bathroom door making him jump.

“I’m a little busy!” He lied. The only thing he was doing at this point was triple checking his glasses cloaking ability. For good measure Dakota stayed in the bathroom for another two minutes before finally leaving. A grumpy looking Cavendish greeted him on the other side holding a towel.

“Good Heavens, if I had known you would always be in the bathroom, I would’ve suggested we find a place with two.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your panties in a twist. You spend just as much time in there, believe me.” He replied, already walking away from the conversation. They both knew they couldn’t afford a place with two bathrooms. Their job as over glorified trash-men left them with just enough money to rent a small one bedroom apartment. It wasn’t much, but Dakota always appreciated a roof over his head, it was a luxury he didn’t always have.

Cavendish on the other hand had been miserable from day one. Between the bad job, the non-futuristic elements of their new life, and the less than ideal living situation, Cavendish had become almost unbearable. Almost. Dakota could never hate the man, but he did get on his nerves from time to time. More frequently lately, but it was expected.

Hopefully that would all change today. They had found an unauthorized alien ship, rescued Milo from an alien abduction, assisted in saving an alien planet, and had proof of it all. Now all they needed was for Mr. Block to approve them for transfer from the janitorial division to the investigational division. Not that Dakota minded either way, but Cavendish did. His partner yearned to be somebody important, so Vinnie would follow him. Hell, he’d follow Cavendish to the ends of the Earth if needed as long as it meant they could stick together.

It wasn’t until hours later when they should have been celebrating their promotion, but instead were actually being sent out on a mission, that Dakota remembered his eye. When it had been hidden so well for nearly two decades, it wasn’t always the first thing on his mind. In fact, not remembering it was the issue.

He should’ve known that even though they got promoted, they would still be stuck with shit jobs. There would be no fighting, no guns blazing, no arrests… Probably. Their job was to sit in this hot, hell hole of a car and observe. Dakota had never been great with sitting still, and now was no different. He tapped his foot in time to the song playing in his head. It was a tune he couldn’t even remember hearing, but his brain just couldn’t seem to let it go.

“Dooby dooby doo-bah, dooby dooby doo-bah” He bobbed his head along with the tune, silently praying for a strong breeze to roll through their open windows. Unfortunately the day seemed to be as un-windy as it was hot. His tracksuit clung to him uncomfortably.

“What in the world are you doing?” Cavendish finally spoke up for the first time in nearly an hour. Dakota almost could have forgotten he was there, if not for the waves of anger rolling off the man. Sure, they were officially off trash duty, but Cavendish was a fool if he thought Mr. Block would assign them to something even half decent. Being a big old bag of dicks must be a Block thing.

“Losing my damn mind in this heat.” Vinnie replied, fanning his jacket in a weak attempt to get some cold air flowing on his sticky skin. “See, that shower this morning was a total waste because I’m going to have to take another one as soon as I get home.”

“Yes this heat is unbearable, but please try to focus. I refuse to fail our first mission.”

“Wouldn’t be the first ‘first mission’ we failed.” Vinnie mumbled, letting his hands fall to his zipper. Normally he wouldn’t take his jacket off in front of anyone, especially not when he was sweating straight through his undershirt. But this was Cavendish. They had been through a lot together, a little skin wouldn’t kill either of them. Well, a little of Cavendish’s skin might kill Dakota, but that wasn’t the issue on hand. 

“Dakota, what are you doing?” Cavendish asked again, staring at him like he had slapped poor dear Momma Cavendish, rest her still unborn soul.

“I am hot.” He said, over emphasizing the last word. Dakota threw the jacket in the back seat, looking anywhere but at Cavendish. Of all the days he decided to wear a tanktop rather than a t-shirt, today had to be the day. His upper arms, like most of his body, were covered in scars and even some light stretch marks. It was nothing he was particularly ashamed of, but he also didn’t like talking about it. His original timeline had not been kind to him, or anyone for that matter. But, he was the only one who would remember, so never talking about it was the preferred option. 

The tension in the car became so thick, Dakota was sure he could cut it with a knife. Maybe it was just him. Surely, Cavendish wasn’t staring daggers at him like Dakota’s mind supplied as he was. Still, he stared out the car window, drowning in the silence.

“You can’t be comfortable either.” Vinnie finally said, looking back at Cavendish. To his dismay Cavendish was staring, though his expression was about a thousand times less judgmental than Dakota had been imagining. “You’re wearing what, like seventeen layers? Take something off. You’re making me hot.”

“I’m fine.” The lie was clear on Cavendish’s beet red face.

“Suit yourself.” Dakota rolled his eyes, feeling a bead of sweat drip down his forehead. Realizing too late where it was headed, he grimaced in pain as the droplet landed in his eye.

He grabbed at his glasses, placing them gently on the dashboard. Rubbing at his eyes with his hands only caused more pain. With little else as an option Dakota grabbed at his tanktop, pulling it upward to wipe the sweat out of his eyes and off of his face. He ignored the barely audible gasp from Cavendish and wondered what stomach scar he got a glimpse of, there were many, some worse than others, and hoped he wouldn’t mention it.

“How are you fine, Cav? It’s hotter than the sun here.” Vinnie blinked away the blurriness tainting his vision.

“That’s not possi-” Cavendish’s harsh tone cut off to silence. More silence. Vinnie really was starting to hate that.

“What?” He asked, gazing in his partners direction. Had Cavendish spotted what they came here to find? Vinnie could hardly see anything at all. It was so uncomfortably bright. If only Cavendish hadn’t parked in the sun. The sun hurt Dakota’s eyes. Or eye, he supposed. It was just the blue one that seemed to be overly sensitive to light. That was the great thing about his contacts, they always filtered out the light enough that he could risk taking off his tinted glasses if he needed to. Except he didn’t have a contact in and Cavendish was staring right at him.

“Your eye… It’s-”

“Blue. Yeah.” Dakota cut him off, reaching for the glasses that belonged back on his face. He never should have taken them off to begin with. “Always has been.”

“But I’ve seen you without your glasses before.” Cavendish still seemed baffled, and Vinnie couldn’t really blame him. They had worked together for so long. Cavendish probably thought he knew everything there was to know about Vinnie Dakota. Boy, was he wrong.

“Yeah, I wear contacts. Or contact, I suppose. It’s just for the one eye. But they’re only good for so long. I ran out.” He stared out the window once more, wishing for once they didn’t have to park in a stupid cornfield. Dakota would kill for anything to look at as a distraction from this horrible conversation.

“Why?”

“The dark helps filter out the light better. Sensitive eyes, am I right?” Vinnie laughed it off as a joke when really his heart was aching. “Plus I figured it was better to match the other one, you know? I got bullied a lot for this as a kid.”

“You what?” Cavendish sounded incredulous. Dakota still wouldn’t look at him.

“I know, right. You’d think that with all the food shortages and mass extinctions people would find better things to direct their negativity toward. I mean, I saw my neighbor resort to cannibalism, but hey lets all make fun of little Vinnie and his freaky eye.” Dakota stopped himself, realizing he said more than he meant to. He had been caught up in the moment and regretted it. There was a lot of his original timeline he hadn’t shared with Cavendish, or anyone for that matter, and with good reason. It wasn’t a nice place.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize-”

“Don’t sweat it.” Vinnie cut him off again, feeling his heart clench at a genuine apology from Cavendish. It wasn’t something that happened often, and given the circumstances Dakota wouldn’t be bringing it up again to tease the older man. “I’m hungry, I’m hot, my eye hurts, and my head is killing me. How long until we can go home?”

“Well, um, judging by the debriefing, they should be here any minute now.” Cavendish stated, looking at the paperwork in his hand. Before Dakota could reply there was a bright flash of light off to their left.

“Looks like they’re right on time.”


	2. Chapter 2

Surprisingly enough their first mission went off without a hitch. Granted, they were only gathering intelligence on two non-deadly alien groups. But still, Cavendish’s beaming smile was almost enough to fix all of Dakota’s issues. Almost, but not quite. As beautiful as Cavendish’s glee was Dakota still had a splitting headache occupying his every thought. It was hell, but no one else’s problem but his and he was determined to keep it that way. He swirled his rice around his plate, watching each individual grain tumble down his glorious rice mound.

“Earth to Dakota.” Cavendish’s voice finally broke through the buzzing in his mind. He flashed his eyes up, surprised to see a concerned look on the older mans face. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” He lied, poking at the untouched eggroll before him.

“Well for starters you haven’t answered a single one of my questions.” Dakota frowned, not realizing he had been spacing out that much. He couldn’t remember Cavendish talking at all, much less asking him actual questions. “But more importantly, you haven’t even touched your food.”

“I did too.” Another lie. Truth be told Dakota, for once, wasn’t hungry. Or more accurately he couldn’t focus on the task before him due to the overwhelming ache surrounding his eye sockets, spreading deep within.

“A single mouthful of rice is not eating. Especially not for you.”

“Alright.” Dakota sighed, deflating into the booth around him. “I have a headache. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Well why didn’t you say something? We didn’t have to go out if your head is still bothering you. We could have ordered in.” Cavendish frowned, turning his head left and right looking for the waitress.

“You wanted to go out.” Dakota reminded him. It had been Cavendish’s suggestion after all. How was he supposed to refuse the man when he had been so giddy about their win?

“Only because you love celebrating with food.” Cavendish finally managed to get someone to their table, who handed them the bill as well as several styrofoam containers to take their meal to go. Idly Dakota reached for his wallet to pay only to have Cavendish beat him to it.

“I could’ve paid.” He mumbled.

“I know.” Cavendish grabbed their bag of food and slid out of the booth waiting patiently for Dakota to follow. He was sluggish and slow, but followed nonetheless. What he really needed was a nap. Maybe some pain medication, too, but they didn’t have the good stuff in this time period.

The ride home was unusually bumpy and Dakota did his best to stifle all the grumbles threatening to fall from his lips. Try as he may, he just wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he got home. The ride took an eternity, with Dakota opting to prop his legs up underneath him in order to rest his head on his arms in his lap. It was uncomfortable, but dark. It would do.

As soon as the car was parked, Dakota was prying himself from the vehicle and headed toward their door. Unfortunately he didn’t have his keys on him and had to wait for Cavendish to catch up. The man hadn’t said anything since they left the Chinese Restaurant, or maybe he had and Dakota was unintentionally ignoring it again. Cavendish didn’t look angry, just worried.

Making a beeline straight for the couch Dakota flopped onto it, not even bothering to take off his shoes, much less pull out the bed portion of it. Still a little uncomfortable, but it would do. All he needed was a quick nap. His much needed shower could wait a few hours.

“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if you pulled out the bed?” Cavendish’s voice sounded from somewhere around him.

“Don’t wanna.” Dakota mumbled into the pillow. Strong hands gripped his feet pulling his shoes off in one swift motion. Normally Dakota would’ve made a joke about Cavendish undressing him. Now it was the furthest thing from his mind. The warm fuzzy feeling spreading through his body threatened to be swallowed whole by his throbbing head.  
Dakota did his best to curl up on the couch. Slowly one arm flopped down to the floor, which he immediately pulled back up. Next his leg slid out from under him, making him jump. He shifted his body over and over again, unable to get comfortable.

“Oh for Heavens sake, get up.” Cavendish snapped loudly enough to make Dakota pry one sleepy eye open. His Partner stood tall above him, frowning downward. Reluctantly Vinnie pulled himself from the couch, fully expecting Cavendish to pull out the bed for him. Instead, he ushered Dakota to the closed door to the right. Cavendish’s bedroom. “You can sleep in my bed. It will be much more comfortable.”

Dakota tried mumbling a protest only to be shushed in return. With not much else to do and desperately craving a nap, he plopped down on the bed, sprawling out into the soft plush blankets beneath him. Within seconds he was asleep.

Vinnie woke up feeling more refreshed than he had in a long time. He was soft and warm and so comfortable that he kept his eyes shut and cuddled into the bed once more. His arms wrapped around whatever he was holding, squeezing the lump contently. It wasn’t until some time later that Dakota realized he wasn’t in his own bed.

Peeling his eyes open, he was surprised to see just how dark it was out. How long had he been asleep? Dakota glanced down at the object in his arms. Dennis. A blush spread across his cheeks upon realizing just where he was. He was in Cavendish’s room, in Cavendish’s bed, cuddling Cavendish’s teddy bear Dennis. All the comfort from moments before dissipated leaving embarrassment in its wake. Dakota was embarrassed at just how much he enjoyed his surroundings. The soft feel of the blankets. The sweet smell of Dennis that was painfully similar to Cavendish.

He dropped the bear and crawled out of bed, reaching to adjust his glasses. A bare face greeted his hand and for the first time since he woke up Dakota realized nothing was tinted with the particular shade of red he had become so accustom to. His hands dragged through the sheets and under each pillow searching for his glasses which were nowhere to be found. Next he checked the nightstand and the floor, wondering if he had slapped them off his face and across the room in his sleep. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Unfortunately there was no sign of his glasses anywhere in the room. Had Cavendish taken them?

The man also stripped him of his shoes so maybe it wasn't that wild of a stretch. An odd mixture of embarrassment and nervousness bubbled in his stomach at the thought of Cavendish looking at his eye again. It was silly really. Cavendish hadn’t said anything demeaning about his heterochromia yet, or anything at all since he found out, so why was Dakota being so paranoid about it? Sure he had been bullied mercilessly for it, among other things, as a child… But this was Cavendish. The only thing he ever picked on Dakota for was his eating habits, and even then it was more playful than anything.

Steeling himself, Dakota opened the bedroom door silently in an attempt to sneak out and find his glasses before Cavendish even noticed he was awake. Unfortunately for him, Cavendish was wide awake inches to the left on the couch watching some reruns of Dr. Zone. Dakota’s glasses sat on the far side of the man meaning he could either ask for them or would have to walk by and grab them himself. Wordlessly Dakota bypassed the man sprawled out on the couch and made a beeline straight for his tinted glasses.

“Oh you’re awake.” Cavendish said, making Vinnie tense up.

“Yeah.” He couldn’t think of anything to say. His normal dry sense of humor completely dissipated without the safety net his glasses provided.

“How did you sleep?” Cavendish eyed him suspiciously as Dakota slipped the glasses back on his face. With his security blanket back in place Vinnie was feeling much better already.

“Like a baby. Drool and all.” He smiled at the older man before flopping down on the opposite end of the couch.

“I swear, Dakota, if you drooled on my Dennis-” Cavendish frowned before cutting himself off. He let out a frustrated sigh before shrugging it off.

“Oh you know about that, huh?” The dim light of the tv hid Dakota’s blush well and for that he was thankful.

“Well your glasses didn’t walk themselves out here. I was checking to see if you wanted some painkillers, I picked them up at the market across the street.” Cavendish’s face lightened once more and Dakota felt his heart swoon. Which was silly. So Cavendish went out and got him some pain pills… so what? That’s what friends did for each other.

“Oh, uh, thanks.” It wasn’t often he found himself fumbling for words, but Cavendish was usually the cause for it. “I’ll grab some in a little bit, keep that headache from coming back.”

Cavendish just nodded, nestling into the couch once more, focusing his eyes on the television. It was an episode he had seen a million times, but Dakota couldn’t complain. They hadn’t hung out like this in a long time, and he wasn’t about to ruin it over anything. He sat in silence watching the tv contently, even long after Cavendish had fallen asleep next to him, sprawling out so his feet rested on Dakota’s lap. Yeah, he wouldn’t change this for the world.


End file.
